Uta No Prince Sama : Maji Love Legend Star Episode 10 Review

Hey everyone! I’m here with another review of Uta No Prince Sama : Maji Love Legend Star. Today, we are going to talk about episode 10, also known as “We believe you”. As always, if you haven’t watched the episode yet, I highly suggest you do so before reading any further, as I will probably be spoiling parts of this episode. As well, while I know this is a review, this is only my opinion, so if you have a different perspective to what I say, please comment below. With that said let’s get started.

Summary:

The episode begins with Otoya calling Tokiya, saying he can no longer smile or be a part of STARISH. Later, the other members of STARISH hear Otoya and Eiichi’s duet song, and are stunned by Otoya’s singing. Tokiya then calls Eiichi to tell him to meet up with him, where he tells him about Otoya’s disappearance. Eiichi misunderstands, and believes that Otoya was just overwhelmed by their song, but later learns, from his father, that Otoya is indeed missing, which upsets Eiichi, but please his father. Tokiya then visits Otoya’s orphanage where he learns about his past: Otoya had never known his father, lost his mother before he even knew her, and was adopted by his aunt, only for her to die of an illness when he was still a child. He then blamed himself for his aunt’s death, believing he caused her to overwork herself and get sick, and also believed he would end up losing those he cared for, and could not smile as a child. Tokiya convinces the others to continue their work, as, if the word about Otoya’s disappearance reached the public, it would hurt Otoya more. Otoya, who has been wandering around the city for most of the episode, hears STARISH’s song “Dreamer’s Symphony”(from Season 2), and decides to go the sunflower field he would have gone to with his aunt, where he remembers his aunt’s words and vows to make everyone smile by being an idol. The episode ends with Otoya’s eyes shining again and the other boys finding him in the sunflower field.

Review:

And the drama bomb has finally hit, and is was really depressing. Again, UtaPri has given us more character development than what I expected. They could easily just have said Otoya had been orphaned from birth, he had no family, or even just saying that the woman we say in his flashbacks was his mom. But they instead went further by saying his father had left his mom, his mom had died, and his aunt then adopted him, only for her to die, causing Otoya alot of emotional scars. As well, while I won’t say I’m an expert when it comes to these kind of things, I can believe that a child would try to forget, or run away, from their pain in order to go on with their life, but the emotional scars are still there and need to be faced at some point. I’m pretty sure anyone who is a big Otoya fan found these last 2 episodes, while maybe kind of disturbing with the parts of Eiichi, but very good in amount of character depth we got for Otoya.

As well, I’m also strangely happy that they didn’t make Eiichi be a complete jerk. Honestly, I don’t like his character, but it does speak more of his character that he just wanted to create the ultimate song with Otoya, which is why he wanted to bring out the darkness in his heart, but he was genuinely concerned once he learned Otoya was missing. They did say he was very passionate, in a creepy sort of way, about his work, but not to the point that he would want to destroy a person. However, this does speak differently for Raging, since he was indeed happy that Otoya had disappeared, even praising Eiichi, thinking that Eiichi had planned for this to happen. Maybe, we will be getting more details about him as well.

As well, I’m not sure how to feel about the song choice for this episode. It definitely fit, and made it Otoya and Haruka seem more similar to each other. It was also nicely animated, and had some cool changes, while still looking like the original song from Season 2. But it also makes me think that, either they couldn’t come up with an original song for this episode, the actual group song will be next episode, or they had actually planned for this to happen. Again, it was a good song choice, so this is more of a nick-pick than anything else.

Now my only true negative about this episode is Haruka’s involvement. I also meant to mention this in my review of Masato’s episode, but Haruka honestly has been getting less and less screentime. Now, I could understand in Masato’s episode why she wasn’t there, as she was busy writing songs, Masato’s dad wanted him to be away from STARISH, and the party was probably only for rich families anyway. But, in this episode, Haruka could have easily gone to wherever Otoya was staying at to see how he was doing, or even just to deliver the music in person. Even after learning about Otoya’s disappearance, why didn’t she try looking around the city for him, or even go to the sunflower field with the other guys to find him? Not that I mind more attention being put on the guys, but this was originally a reverse harem anime, and I do hope that she chooses one of these guys one day, especially considering Otoya is one of her top suitors. (Let’s face facts, if she ends up with anyone, it will be someone from STARISH, and is more than likely going to be Otoya)

In Conclusion:

All-in-all, this was a pretty enlightening episode on a character. I know, I know, bad pun, I’m sorry(not really :P). But seriously, this two-part episode was different from what we have seen previously from UtaPri, and it had drama, character development, and feels. So many feels. I feel that this episode has truly cemented this season as a change for the better for this series, and is a must-see for anyone who has watched this series. If you are interested in this series, please go check it out on Crunchyroll. With that said, please comment below on what you thought of this episode. Is Otoya’s backstory believable? Do you think Haruka needs more screen time, or that less of her is for the better? Keep smiling, and I hope to see you guys next time.